Dear self: we need to talk about social media

https://acesounderglass.com/2021/12/04/dear-self-we-need-to-talk-about-social-media/

by luu • 5 years ago

129 98 5 years ago

Some good suggestions in here. Even the suggestions specific to the author's personal habits are portable to other habits.

Worth noting that this is about more than just social media. It's about distractions in general and being specific about how you fill your time.

Ironically, some of the most distracted people I've ever worked with had proudly sworn off "social media" long ago. Yet they were constantly buried in discussion forums (LessWrong, HN, Reddit, IRC) that weren't traditional Facebook/Instagram style social media sites. Whatever distinction you use doesn't really matter.

More generally, it's important to be deliberate with the notifications you allow into your life and the activities you use to fill idle time. Both iOS and Android have facilities to limit notifications during certain periods. Use them liberally.

Many apps, including social apps, work just fine with notifications disabled. I might check Instagram once a day and I can respond to any messages at that time. I'm not missing anything by using a poll instead of a push method for checking these.

331c8c71• 5 years ago

Yet they were constantly buried in discussion forums

Well, I am like that. I find social media to be too addictive/distracting so I am off that shit completely.

Older-school stuff is also addictive but to a lesser extent.

walrus012• 5 years ago

If you are not going to take the steps of ceasing to use some of these things...

one of the best things you can do is disable all forms of mobile app notification from twitter, facebook, instagram apps.

do not enable anything that brings itself to your attention and requires an action like swipe-down from android top menu, look at notification, possibly click on it.

only view the content of whatever is in the app when you specifically choose to open it.

I find these days that I get much more value out of a private signal chat group that has about 50 people in it, all of whom have notifications for the group turned off and leave messages/post things asynchronously (almost exactly as you might see people using IRC for in 1998), than the big company run social media. At any given time there might be 4-5 active people in it since everyone is busy with careers, real life, and are spread out across almost all of the world's timezones.

indymike• 5 years ago

one of the best things you can do is disable all forms of mobile app notification from twitter, facebook, instagram apps.

This is the trick. When you engage communication on your own terms, the outcomes are better - for you, and often for the rest of the world. Facebook looks totally different when you aren't just reacting. Much easier to focus on the things you really are interested in instead of what the algorithm wants you to pay attention to.

simonebrunozzi• 5 years ago

one of the best things you can do is disable all forms of mobile app notification from twitter, facebook, instagram apps.

Came to say the same thing. The only notification I have on my phone is SMS, and thankfully very few people send me SMS these days.

debaserab2• 5 years ago

I'd even add email for that matter. It's not the same as social media addiction but it plays on the same impulses. Turning off email notifications greatly improved my ability to compartmentalize work and personal time.

belkinpower• 5 years ago

I tried this, but had the opposite problem. With push notifications turned off, I constantly feel the urge to check the app to see if there’s anything new. With them turned on it’s easier to ignore the app unless someone actually messages me.

civilized2• 5 years ago

one of the best things you can do is disable all forms of mobile app notification from twitter, facebook, instagram apps.

Yes. I feel the need to do this viscerally and always have. To be acceptable, a push notification would have to warn me of impending death or severe injury. All other push notifications are evil. You might as well be snorting meth.

Social media should be consumed once a day, when your brain is too tired to do anything else.

Also, I want to join your signal group.

dsaavy• 5 years ago

I liked the style of this blog post/self-addressed letter. I found myself brainstorming many of the methods for Quiet that the author mentions.

Side note: I've always wondered how much potential is lost in the current generations because of the constant distractions (of all kinds). The type of deep and creative thinking that comes from boredom and a lack of interruptions can drive great change and ideas from a personal and societal perspective.

The switching cost of focus changes is a real issue in thinking in deep ways. And the cost of doing it frequently is definitely a drain and cause of atrophy in overall focus ability. Trying to rein in your ability to focus for longer periods of time is HARD. It's mentally and even physically uncomfortable.

andrejserafim• 5 years ago

This and also being able to satisfy an itch at any moment. Be it youtube or facebook, whatever your favourite drug is. It's infinitely available and is much easier than any other form of activity.

But in an of itself doesn't create anything. Mindless content consumption doesn't even leave memories sometimes, what to say of ideas.

wussboy• 5 years ago

I realize it is too late to get rid of mobile devices. But I have long advocated for “Techno-lent”: a period of forty days and nights where you put your mobile devices off and in a drawer, you turn off your WiFi.

Before you claim it is impossible because of your work, is it really? Did you try and think of a way that was possible?

winternett4• 5 years ago

Different things work for different people.

My main frustration is with the need for social media to drive dependency, addiction, and engagement.

I am weary of content and UI controls that increasingly are overly monopolizing my time just to get to a point that is often totally a waste of time, and/or not funny.

If social media algorithms were actually accurate in determining what I really like to watch, instead of just being dedicated towards steering me towards consumerism (that I'm not going to engage in anyway) my feelings would be different about it not being a useful friend anymore.

I just use it in small doses when I'm bored or waiting for a project to render or build now and as places to collect/share my shower thoughts and funny things I find.

jdavis703• 5 years ago

But now there is in-person socializing again

I’ve been struggling with this. I either forgot where & how to socialize, or socializing is not actually back. Even though we’re back to normal, I feel as disconnected as ever. What are remote workers doing to socialize without social media these days?

ok_dad2• 5 years ago

I’m with you, I have no friends and I’m getting really depressed. Online games and friends aren’t a replacement and I don’t know where to go these days to meet people who have my interests. I don’t even know how to talk to strangers anymore, and I wasn’t very good at it before the past 2 years. I’m sick of spending all my time with my wife and kid, even though I love them. I can’t go many places or interact with people who aren’t very safe, because my wife has bad lungs and if she gets Covid there’s a real chance she’ll die, even vaccinated and boosted. What do people do about that? I’m getting to the point where I just work all the time to pass time and the rest I’m doing stuff for my family like chores and errands. I’m not doing great right now.

Edit because who the f downvotes this? Fuck you ya dirty rat.

labster• 5 years ago

Downvoted because parent reminds me of how isolated and meaningless my own life is. This is The Holidays, a time for palliative lies, not honest assessments of our cultural alienation.

Though Dickens might disagree with me.

DarylZero• 5 years ago

Me too.

winternett4• 5 years ago

Try reaching out to old friends, share your phone number and transition to phone calls. Text messaging is what makes many feel so disconnected because there are no vocal or facial expressions involved.

Also, just practice talking to random strangers, you'll find that some people who are just hanging out outdoors in parks are going through the same emotions you are.

Don't place expectations on anyone to be a committed friend, just start chats with strangers and let that be it until you feel comfortable with asking for phone numbers or coffee/tea hangouts and then work up from there. Don't expect anything from anyone, work on your personal happiness, hobbies, being available when people try to chat with you, and stability (financial, mental, and physical health) in the world. Some of the best conversations I've had in life were one-time chats with strangers, they tailor their words to us less than friends because they don't know us.

You'll be surprised how friendships just fall into view when you do that without expectations. Don't think about it, just try it.

throwaway5542111• 5 years ago

Meet up groups, popping to the pub for lunch and meeting the locals, knocking on neighbour's doors to introduce yourself, asking an old friend if they want to come over and play some Goldeneye.

You just have to actually do it.

For disclosure though, I don't work remotely, the benefits (mainly skipping a bit of cycling each day) seem minor to me compared to the downsides. And I never stopped socializing to begin with since I think corona is overblown, so I'm maintaining and adding to social groups.

I have lost a lot of friends too, of course.

watwut4• 5 years ago

popping to the pub for lunch and meeting the locals, knocking on neighbour's doors to introduce yoursel

No one will talk to you in pub, "locals" are with their established friend group or at home. And knocking to introduce yourself is weird, and still people won't socialize with you because you knocked. They have own plans and ow isolated lifes

quocanh2• 5 years ago

A bit off topic.

I think it's fascinating when people say that meditation doesn't work for them but then discover the benefits of meditative states all on their own. That's what Quiet is anyway.

neuronic3• 5 years ago

Meditation works for them but they have to overcome many obstacles before seeing even the slightest sliver of success. The brain is manipulated into a very agitated state due to constant engagement.

24/7-be-ready on your phone with 35 TikTok videos followed by WhatsApp messages and then 3 emails from your boss after 8pm.

You have to overcome this shit to even just reach the starting point of people who tried meditation a few decades ago.

quocanh2• 5 years ago

The tricky thing is how do you tell someone this? It's like being unable to do a pullup. You can try but if you can't even get one rep in then it just feels like wasted effort.

The way that the author figured out on her own is a great way to learn how to meditate. If you can't do meditation, then don't. Try reading a book. Turning off your phone. Going for a walk. Just like how if you can't do a pullup, do light dumbbell curls or use the assisted weight machine. Do the easier thing first and then you'll build up strength. I suspect that if she were to try meditation today, then she would be ready. It's not so hard. We were all born with the Quiet.

DangitBobby3• 5 years ago

I don't have very healthy relationship with online communications, and especially social media. Generally I find any disruption from deep thought, especially notifications from my phone, chat, and email, to be very aggravating or even stressful. If I'm really into my work, I will audibly grumble or say "what!" loudly (I work at home by myself so this doesn't bother anyone else). I have to carefully curate all notifications (and in the case of email, be diligent about unsubscribing from newsletters/marketing material I didn't sign up for) to minimize disruption for my own sanity.

Even when I'm not working, a generic notification from my phone is stressful because the thought that it could be something that I have to deal with right now doesn't go away until I check it. Because of this, I have to blacklist any application that will happily send me useless notifications, which includes basically all social media apps, which means I don't know when someone is genuinely trying to engage with me on social media unless I visit all the time. As a result, I basically don't use social media. It's unfortunate to miss things that people only plan via indirect communication because of that, but it is what it is. I definitely feel like the ubiquity of planning and communication via e.g. Facebook means that I miss out on a lot of social events and interaction, so I must ironically conclude that I am alienated from most of my peers as a result of social media.

walrus012• 5 years ago

With android 8/9/10 it's totally possible to 100% disable all ability for a specific app to send any notifications at all. Not in the settings within the app, but at the operating system level. Not sure if same on iOS.

neuronic3• 5 years ago

Since iOS 15 it has been very easy to just configure a Focus mode. I put all (and I mean all) apps and contacts in a silent-list during whichever time I feel like being left alone.

Can still define certain contacts to reach you in case of emergency and so on.

Love it - silencing the phone is the best thing ever. Starve the attention economy of attention and let all the bad actors like Facebook/Meta slowly perish.

DangitBobby3• 5 years ago

This is what I end up doing for most apps. I try to customize them to only send me notifications I care about, but many apps do not let you disable notifications that are designed to increase engagement. Pixel + T-Mobile combined do a very, very good job of blocking robo-calls and spam texts too, so in general I'd say it's gotten much better.

rootusrootus• 5 years ago

Not sure if same on iOS.

Yes. iOS has several layers of notification control, including all the way down to the specific app. And also type of notification for each app. E.g. is it allowed to put an indicator on icon? How about pop up a banner? Now, can it make any noise?

krisoft• 5 years ago

I totaly get what you say about notifications. I also get anoyed by beeping or buzzing which robs me of my focus.

Here is how i handle it: I just set all my devices to be silent. I set things up such that I won’t even see the notifications. Periodically as I finish something, or need to take a brake I emerge from concentration and do a scan of my queued up notifications. And just then I answer them.

I’m not a first responder. If someone is going to literally die unless they hear from me immediately they better call the emergency numbers anyway.

Friends, family, coworkers all know and respect that they will get an answer but perhaps not immediately. In return when I get around it I make sure to respond in a usefull and thoughtfull way to the best of my abilities. People seems to be fine with it, and it prevents me from drowning in a constant barrage of pings.

DangitBobby3• 5 years ago

I just need to be reachable from work and for emergencies during the day, so I am set up to recieve notifications from what could be urgent: SMS, calls, emails, and calendar reminders. Everything else gets the banhammer if it bothers me.

fy20• 5 years ago

I totaly get what you say about notifications. I also get anoyed by beeping or buzzing which robs me of my focus.

My pet peeve is people who leave Slack on the default settings to make a noise when messages are received and have the volume on their laptop turned up....

vegetablepotpie3• 5 years ago

Thank you for putting into words what I believe is the legitimate counter argument to the idea that choosing not to use a product you don’t like is the proportionate response to that product.

Because Facebook exists, it displaces other avenues for social connection that have been used previously. Facebook hurts you, even if you don’t choose to use it.

tksb• 5 years ago

This is exactly how I feel. So, thank you for putting in to words what you saw so that I could hear it.

lifeisstillgood• 5 years ago

There is too much data out there for any human to manage.

There is no algorithm that will be able to show the "correct" data (#) to any subset of people, whoever defines correct.

So tommy simple mind we need automated help, and so need all data producers to make data available under common protocols.

My pipe dreams are harder now there are no pipes anymore

(#) this is a side fallacy of "management" - the idea that somehow senior management can wait for people to come to them with problems and they can decide on policy. You can't decide unless you are deep in the data. You cannot decide

it's why we need experts and to trust decentralised decision making because we can trust the incentives.

It's also why you should never trust any industry that has a weird business model (filmmaking, hedge funds, airlines) because we cannot correctly see the incentives from the outside. It's why regulators should have a one paragraph description of how the industry they regulate makes its money, posted at the top of all its stationary and web sites etc. It is I think the regulatory holy grail because it will freak everyone out.

mikewarot3• 5 years ago

I've never owned a smart phone, for fear of becoming addicted to it. It seems that was a well founded notion. The two things I think they are useful for are Google Maps (for the Traffic, I know where I'm going), and getting phone numbers to place carry out orders.

I don't constantly check email, I don't have a stream of interruptions when I'm away from the computer. Now all I have is the almost daily non-disable-able "amber alerts" that jar me out of my life, and the occasional junk call.

When I do consume sites, I try very hard to avoid letting their algorithm decide what I see. With Facebook, for example you can append ?sk=h_chr to the site name, and it will show you thinks in reverse chronological order. I use subscriptions on Youtube, and only use "Home" when I'm bored and want to veg. I curate my sources as best I can.

Sosh1012• 5 years ago

The things I would miss without a smartphone:

- Maps

- Digital tickets / proof-of-something

- Payments / Transfers

- Taxis

blueflow• 5 years ago

Things i use without a smartphone:

- Maps

- Tickets, Vaccination pass

- Coins and Cash for Payments

- Taxis

I hoped for a moment you were kidding. Now i'm a bit sad.

Tade03• 5 years ago

I started going full 90s and buying devices which serve a singular purpose nowadays usually performed by a smartphone app. So far I have:

-A rotational timer which you, well, rotate and it times.

-A whiteboard which serves as my todo list.

-An mp3 player.

-Regular old satnav in my car.

-Remote-controlled LED in my bedroom.

I'm also thinking of using a regular watch again after an almost 20-year hiatus.

All this just so I won't get tempted to check social media each time I'm trying to perform an unrelated task.

It's ridiculous, but these are the lengths I'm willing to go to fight this.

mikewarot3• 5 years ago

All this just so I won't get tempted to check social media

Don't install it on your smartphone. Its like the best diet advice in the world... don't buy the food and bring it into your home, and you can't be tempted by it.

Social media should only ever be checked from a web browser on a PC.

sdenton4• 5 years ago

Meanwhile, there's a decent case to be made that smartphones - even with their short lifecycles - are a net win for the environment because of all of the single purpose goods and electronics they replace.

ip26• 5 years ago

Maps, camera, notes, books, cookbooks, collaborative grocery list, weather, payments, video calls, podcasts, air quality… pocket computer & Wi-Fi calling when traveling internationally.

I try to go back to flip phones but smartphones have tons of real utility for me.

vegetablepotpie3• 5 years ago

I would like to go back to a flip phone, but the one app that I cannot go without is two factor authentication through apps. I simply will not let something like a brokerage account be protected with only a password. SMS as a two factor authentication method has known security flaws. Some two factor apps brokerages use provide RSA key fobs, but when I try to buy them, they’re sold out. It does not give me confidence of long term support for that two factor method. I have to stick with some kind of iOS or Android device.

I suppose I could try to find an MP3 player that runs iOS or Android, or run Android in an emulator on my computer, and use that as my “phone” but I worry I’ll hit walls if the apps look for a SIM card and most of the world doesn’t use OSes like that, so support might drop inexplicably with a software update that doesn’t account for my use case and I’ll be out of luck at that point.

dredmorbius3• 5 years ago

Realtime access to information on the move is ... highly attractive.

Navigating transit systems with and without some kind of wireless data-enabled device is an absolute game-changer, especially.

Without, you're planning all trips in advance, carrying timetables, and/or memorising the schedules and routes you use routinely.

With, you can check to see what the arrival time for a specific route is, use trip planners, or simply enter starting points and destinations and let the planner select routes for you. Whether making an incidental trip cross-town or as a tourist or business traveller to an unfamiliar location and making effective use of transit, it's simply a huge capability multiplier.

As someone who's made major road trips over a span of about 35 years, the capabilities afforded by mobile devices are also huge. My first trips predated the Internet and any use of mobile phones outside an exclusive elite. My first trips with a mobile phone, and with a smart phone, were both signifiant leaps, though the second more so.

That said, I've become radically disenchanted with the technology, and prefer splitting my comms, relying on either a tablet or laptop, and these days, an e-ink tablet.

For gross navigation, I still find maps and road atlases highly useful and largely sufficient. The principle limitation is in not having detailed maps of specific locations along a route, though the detail provided in atlases and state-level maps is sufficient for most purposes. What frustrates me with mainline mapping tools and sites is that they have very limited offline capabilities ... for no real good reason. I've just re-checked F-Droid to see if there are any viable offline mapping tools, and am not finding those.

Realtime traffic and weather information is useful, though often not critical.

Access to pricing and product information when shopping is another nice-to-have, but not essential.

Excluding Google+, I've never used mainstream social media platforms full stop, let alone smartphone apps. (I do have accounts on some federated and smaller services, including of course HN, also Reddit and Ello.)

As noted, the bloom is well off the rose:

- Attention stealing is absolutely rampant, and a real issue. notifications are the first thing I disable. "Do Not Disturb" is on for 23 hours, if not 24. "Mail break" is A Thing. See Neal Stephonson's essay on being a poor correspondent.

- Privacy. I've never been comfortable with this aspect of mobile devices. That level has translated from minimal reluctant use to the maximum level of avoidance possible.

- Both Web and App experience are increasingly user-hostile. "Progress" in apps serves the platform and/or advertisers / financiers, not the users and device owners. Worse, the same characteristics are increasingly affecting and afflicting both mobile and desktop websites. As an example of the latter, recent redesigns of both Reuters and the Financial Times websites to what's effectively not a "mobile first" but a "mobile only" design, and a massive decrease in functionality and utility of both. (There are numerous other examples, these two are fresh of mind, close at hand, and affect premiere websites.)

- The Web is increasingly trash, and again, anticipating the "just don't use those bits" response, the rot affects and touches everything, and is all but impossible to avoid, both online and off. Search engines hide useful and prioritise useless sites. (Google's long done this, DuckDuckGo/Bing are rapidly matching pace.)

- Even informational resources are continuously revised and given Schlimbessurung --- an improvement that worsens --- such that trying to get useful information is increasingly tedious. (The underlying problem: information monetises very poorly.)

- Interfaces and operating systems remain poor and limited (if it fits in your pocket, it's going to be a terrible interaction). Laptops aren't easy to use when mobile, but are vastly more useful once set up.

- Device updates, security, and the like.

Things I simply don't and won't do: payments, identity, subscription services, etc., etc., etc.

An e-ink tablet with downloaded static references (maps, texts, etc.), planning in advance, WiFi connectivity for specific updates (transit), addresses most of my needs. A dumbphone for emergency comms on the road, but even this is highly optional. For any substantive use, a laptop or desktop.

bluefirebrand• 5 years ago

One of the most amazing uses of a smartphone for me transit-wise is when you miss your bus. You can find another route to your destination that you can walk to and arrive only a bit late instead of an entire bus increment late.

rstuart4133• 5 years ago

I own a smartphone. I could not give it up.

That's not because of social media. It's because it's become the 7th sense for humans. I have vision, smell, hearing - but nothing that would let me see rain approaching from 100km away on radar, or tell me the position of a National Park boundary with 10m accuracy that I could not cross within my fishing live, or find a parking lot, or locate and pick up my lost wife in a foreign city, or become an arm of law enforcement by photographing an incident (especially when that incident is perpetrated by the people who our system trusts most - the law enforcers), and perhaps most importantly magnifying the power of my bullshit sensor by orders of magnitude with instant fact checking.

onion2k• 5 years ago

You realise people did all those things before smartphones, right? You absolutely could do them all. It might be harder, but suggesting you couldn't do them is clearly just silly.

ravenstine• 5 years ago

I own a smartphone, but I think I've done some things that make me relatively immune to the sort of addiction that others experience, and that I once experienced myself.

Back in 2014 I decided to stop using Facebook for a month. Don't ask me why. This was back when Facebook was far more compelling. Then a month turned into 3 months. 3 months turned into an entire year before I decided to log back in.

But this time I wasn't compelled to keep using it. I was immediately bored, put it down, and did other things. The addiction never returned once I had take time to experience a life that doesn't require being connected in that way.

My attitude towards social media and tech were permanently changed. Most of what I do on the internet and my phone today is purposeful. I do sometimes use Reddit but only if I'm interested in a specific subject; I don't ever scroll through my home page mindlessly. For years I've put my phone into "Do Not Disturb" mode so that only phone calls from people in my contacts can ring through, and every other distraction is completely silent. I will go several hours, sometimes over a day not checking my phone for notifications. Depending on how important an email or text is (most of the time they're inane) I will reply when it's most convenient to me rather than on the spot.

Not owning a smart phone is one way to go, but I've found it possible to live with my device without it ruling my life.

daniel-thompson• 5 years ago

"We need to talk about X" is a clickbait-y headline that I just never click on anymore. A one-line summary of the main idea would be much more interesting and useful.

neuronic3• 5 years ago

But the attention economy demands otherwise. Most people will click it out of being dopamined into caring for 3 seconds.

thewarrior• 5 years ago

A post about the pitfalls of social media is a cliche at this point. None of these posts with very moralistic tones acknowledge that the ability to participate in a real time text and image adventure with millions of others is something that brings great power.

Reading Hacker News has changed my life.I don't always agree with Paul Graham but in my opinion Hacker News is his greatest creation. It changed my outlook as an engineer and I went from being a no name engineer at an ordinary company to a senior engineer at a FANG. Someone I met on Facebook helped me on my journey. I found room mates on Facebook and they're now my friends. Certain obscure subreddits have given me fresh new perspectives and changed how I look at the world. I've been in Twitter DMs with really interesting people. Instagram is a way for a lot of creatives to find an audience whether its photography or art. The feedback mechanisms and publicity have led to some people getting insanely good. I'm still trying to understand TikTok but perhaps I'm getting too old to rewire my brain for it.

I do realize how this is all a little too much for my brain that evolved to forage berries and roam jungles. Our brains were not designed to handle the volume and speed. A lot of it is undoubtedly useful but social interactions often have an adversarial element to them. In real life the slower speed and repeated interactions allows us to stay on top of it. Keeping up with all of this imposes a cognitive load.

I have started meditating and trying not to respond in anger or indignation to everything I see online. What meditation gives us is the idea of "enough". Everything that we've ever known and more people than have ever lived are a tap or swipe away. We are miniscule in comparison and should try and adjust our expectations for what we hope to accomplish.

I use social media knowing my limitations. A tiny brain trying to stay afloat in a sea of information and cyber predators. I'll never comprehend more than a fraction of my filter bubble or keep up with the discourse as it ricochets around the world 10 times before I see it.

The next generation will be able to use the highly plastic brains of their childhood to mould themselves to survive and even thrive in this brave new world. I am not going to try and stop them from mastering this new reality. I would educate them about the pitfalls and the need for moderation.

I am not going to stop using social media. My life would be poorer for it. The problem is not social media. The problem is that technology has outrun our brains.

localhost• 5 years ago

News Feed Eradicator is a must-have for all my computers [1] It eliminates the algorithmic feed, but still lets you use the site to look up individual feeds and links to specific posts still continue to work. For me, it helps to eliminate the scrolling temptation.

[1] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/news-feed-eradicat...

dredmorbius3• 5 years ago

Can we add COWA to the lexicon of FOMO?

Consciousness of Wasting Attention.

Falkon1313• 5 years ago

I think the key is fatigue.

You get so many calls from spammers and scammers, you turn off the ringer and just let things go to voice mail. Nobody answers their phone these days unless someone pre-arranges a call or messages first and then escalates it to a voice call. Phone fatigue.

So much spam and ham in e-mail that you turn off notifications and just occasionally go check your e-mail to find the 4 things of interest and delete the other 7000. Then wonder if maybe you overlooked and deleted an important one. E-mail fatigue.

You get so much junk mail, medical bills that say 'this is not a bill', mailings from places where you've selected e-statements and e-billing only yet they keep mailing - that eventually you stop bothering and it all just piles up on the counter. Until one day you go through it all, find a refund check from the IRS, and rush out to deposit it before it goes stale. Junk mail fatigue.

You go to the store to get X, but there are 47 varieties of X to choose from so you end up deciding you don't want it that bad after all and don't end up getting it. Decision fatigue.

The description of social media fatigue fits right in. With all that rapid attention switching, it gets hard to focus on anything for any length of time. Your mind starts craving a feed of constant stimulus, but it's exhausting. Attention fatigue.

The idea of Quiet with a capital Q is a good way to relax and recover from all that fatigue. My favorite is to take an actual physical book outside into nature and read for awhile, where the only distractions are birds, chipmunks, and butterflies. Unfortunately that doesn't work so well during winter when it's below freezing out, but at least there's still bathtime.

bruce511• 5 years ago

What is this "mail" you speak of? And what is a "check"?

openfuture• 5 years ago

Yep, this is the way we will get some human rights back, people will demand less cognitive taxation.

laurent92• 5 years ago

The way I imagine upmost luxury, is when you are isolated from brands. When going from Windows to Linux to Mac in 2010, I noticed how there were much fewer popups and attention grabbers (how it has changed since…). Same when going to an upmarket supermarket compared to Carrefour. Rich people are isolated from shopping itself. Imagine how available their minds are!

Dear self: we need to talk about social media

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